Dalit woman paraded naked

SATARA: In a shocking incident, a Dalit widow was assaulted and reportedly paraded naked at Mulgaon village of Patan tehsil in Satara district, western Maharashtra, two days ago, after her son eloped with a girl from a high-caste family.

New Delhi: In Maharashtra, political parties may be sparring for a land for a memorial of Babasaheb Ambedkar but not too many moved by the plight of a Dalit woman who was assaulted and paraded naked at Mulgaon village in Satara, all because her son eloped with a girl from a higher caste.

After she was stripped, paraded naked and beaten mercilessly by lathis, this Dalit Woman in the district hospital of Maharashtra's Karad says she is terrified of returning to her village.

Weeks after Rekha Chavan was assaulted and humiliated, her attackers roam free. Rekha is guilty of allowing her son, a Dalit elope with an girl from the upper caste.

In election season as politicians across party lines woo the Dalit voter, on the ground very little has changed.

RR Patil, Home Minsiter, Maharashtra, said, "Enquiry has been ordered. Strict action will be taken. I will not allow atrocities on Dalits."
It was in Satara district that a young Ambedkar faced humiliating experiences on account of his caste. Experiences that made him think of unaccountability that influenced his life. Decades later it appears nothing has changed as Rekha chavan from the very same Satar district will tell you. Agitating for land to build a memorial for Babsaheb Ambedkar ahead of elections will not change that.

Rekha was assaulted because her son allegedly eloped with a Maratha girl
Four days after she was beaten up, stripped and paraded in her own village, 42-year-old Dalit widow Rekha Arun Chavan wonders if she would have lived a life of more dignity had she been born in an upper caste. Rekha was assaulted because her son Amol allegedly eloped with a Maratha girl Anita Desai from Mulgaon village in Karad, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's hometown. Relatives of the girl confessed to The Hindu that they had indeed beaten her up.

Bai aahe ka kutri? Am I woman or a dog to be beaten up like that,â€ Rekha asked this correspondent while she lay in a bed on Friday afternoon in Karad's Krishna Hospital. â€œAbout 12 persons of the Desai family assaulted me for one and a half hours. They called me names and swore at me for being from a lower caste. Would they have tortured me the same [way] had I not been a Dalit,â€ she asked. She had no clue about her 22-year-old son Amol's relationship with 17-year-old Anita, their neighbour.

â€œWhat was wrong?â€

Speaking to The Hindu in Mulgaon village, where the incident happened, Anita's cousin Bhimrao Desai said, â€œWhat is wrong? How would anyone else react if their daughter had run away with a lower caste man?â€

So far, five persons from the Desai household have been arrested in the case, and are under police custody.

The Desais are Marathas. According to Rekha, the village always lives in fear of the Marathas. Nobody speaks against them. There are about 25 Dalit families, and 100 Maratha families, she said. â€œWhen I was being beaten up, everyone just watched. They want to live safely in the village,â€ she said, showing the black and blue marks on the thighs, back and hands. Rekha said she had been ostracised by the villagers, even from her community, on the orders of the Marathas. She owns a small provision store. She lost her husband 22 years ago.

Like every village in Maharashtra, Mulgaon also boasts a â€˜Tanta Mukti Samiti' (committee to resolve disputes) under the much talked about Mahatma Gandhi Tanta Mukti Gaon Yojana (dispute-free village scheme). A dispute like this should have been identified and resolved at the village level. However, as Bhimrao Desai reveals, the head of the committee is also from the Desai community. â€œWhen things are going wrong in your own house, what can the committee do,â€ he asks.

Rekha's son left the house stating that he was going to Pune for a job. â€œHe left on December 13. I haven't heard of him since,â€ she said. Anita went missing a day after. Since then, Rekha was threatened repeatedly. Her nephew Sharad and sister-in-law Surekha were also beaten up. While Sharad has lodged a police complaint, Surekha was too scared to take the step. It is also perhaps a sense of guilt that stopped her. â€œAmol had told me before leaving. He wanted me to give his mobile phone to Anita and help her hide her bag, I had conveyed the message to her,â€ Surekha said.

When attempts to get the information about her son from her relatives failed, the Desais targeted her, Rekha says. I kept begging them to leave me, and I repeatedly told them that I didn't know about his whereabouts. But nobody listened. Both the men and women were merciless,â€ she stated.

In Mulgaon, though, there is a sense of acceptance of the atrocity. â€œSuch things [inter-caste marriages] can happen in cities, but even we don't feel good that it is happening in our own village,â€ Eknath Chavan, also a Dalit, said. â€œWe know it is permitted by law but we cannot be OK with it,â€ he said.

Rekha's neighbour Samabai Chavan, who was one of the eyewitnesses, said: â€œI tried to stop them. She held on to my feet while they were beating her with sticks.â€ According to Samabai, Rekha went to the hospital alone after being assaulted. Nobody from the village has gone to visit Rekha in the hospital. â€œShe is paying for what she has done. We have to do our own work,â€ Eknath Chavan says nonchalantly.

In the hospital, Rekha's 70-year-old mother Gayabai Sathe asks, â€œWhat has my daughter done? How will she go back and live in her house?â€

Says Rekha: â€œI want to prove to them that I cannot be scared away. I will go back to my house in the village and live with dignity.â€

Four days after a Dalit woman was allegedly stripped and beaten by members of an upper caste family in Mulgaon village in Satara district, Laxmanrao Dhoble, NCP leader and minister for water supply and sanitation, tried to justify the incident saying that â€œthe anger of the family was naturalâ€.

Upset with the comment, members of the Dalit Mahasangh burned an effigy of Dhoble outside Krishna Charitable Hospital in Karad where the 42-year-old widow was being treated.

In December 2011, the widowâ€™s 21-year old-son eloped with his 18-year-old girlfriend, who is from the Maratha community. The girlâ€™s father, Kishan Desai, kept inquiring with the widow, who belongs to the scheduled caste Matang community, about the whereabouts of her son.

On January 9, about 15 members of the Desai family approached the victim while she was fetching water from the village well. The Dalit Mahasangh claims that the woman beaten with shoes, stones and sticks, stripped, dragged through the village and tied to a tree.

On Friday morning, after visiting the widow, the minister told the media that the incident has been exaggerated.

Dhoble said the woman had been living in the village for two decades without any issue. â€œThe outburst of the girlâ€™s family is natural. The facts are being twisted in this matter, creating environment of suspicion,â€ Dhoble said.

While five members of the Desai family have been arrested, the state government has ordered an inquiry in this matter.